Face Your Fears!

Seven Stories

About the client

We’ve been working with Seven Stories, the National Centre for Children’s Books, for a year now, developing creative concepts for their campaigns and designing some of their promotional print materials.

The brief

We were asked to create a powerful concept for Seven Stories’ important October Half Term week of events and activities – ‘Face Your Fears!’ It had to be appealing enough to drive footfall into Seven Stories’ venue, help achieve ambitious visitor targets and encourage spend.

What we delivered

Illustrating in-house, we created the feel of an old apothecary’s shop, using jars, books and boxes to communicate the programme of events.

We were conscious of Half Term being close to Halloween and Bonfire Night, and purposefully avoided the seasonal cliches typically associated with these events. Instead, we chose to reference the season – the longer nights and darker days – with a muted colour palette of browns and greys and some ‘old world’ graphic devices.

To complement our illustration work, we introduced some textures into the creative, including wood for the shelves, a spooky texture for the back wall and a cardboard texture for the boxes, to bring the creative to life.

The concept was used across print, social and digital media.

What the client said

“The theme for October half term at Seven Stories was bold, innovative and challenging. We wanted children to confront their fears using books through a programme that included a Death Café and a ‘Fear Jar’ workshop where children would contain – and ultimately conquer – their anxieties in jars.  

The event branding needed to convey a sense of fear without scaring children witless, and feel different to more mainstream Halloween offers. The creative process we went on with Sherlock was thoroughly enjoyable – we started with a really exciting mix of initial concepts and ended with the final concept in record time! We love the final concept – it is daring, striking and has sparked the type of conversations we were hoping to stir amongst our audiences.” Victoria Sanderson, Marketing & Communications Manager, Seven Stories

Other Projects

  • Euan Sey, Founder and Commercial Director, Curry Leaf Cafe

    “They’re an easy bunch to work with, have a great knowledge of the sector and give 110%.”

  • Ruth Timmins-Williams, Brand Experience Manager, Tesco

    “Working with Sherlock is always a pleasure, the ideas keep coming and the energy remains unphased...”

  • Dan Dixon, Sales Director, Exhibitions, William Reed Business Media

    “They were flexible, great to work with, and the result more than met our expectations.”

  • Nick Cooper, Founding Director of Crunchy Critters

    “The team’s extensive knowledge of the food & drink sector really shone through and they went above and beyond...”

  • Sam Hepworth, Head of Communications and Digital Media, Whizz-Kidz

    “Sherlock rose to the challenge and provided us with several initial concepts that were all so impressive that we struggled settling on just one.”

Subscribe today to receive our newsletter